Institute for Justice

Policing for Profit: Colorado

Colorado earns a C for its civil forfeiture laws:

Higher bar to forfeit property, but no conviction required

Stronger protections for innocent third-party property owners

50% of forfeiture proceeds go to law enforcement

State Forfeiture Laws

The Centennial State reformed its civil forfeiture laws in 2002, but the laws’ C grade demonstrates that the state should do more to protect Coloradans from abuse. The standard of proof the government must meet in order to forfeit property in Colorado is clear and convincing evidence. In cases where an innocent owner objects to a seizure, the government bears the burden of showing that the owner participated in, condoned or knew about the criminal activity associated with the property. Colorado law enforcement keeps 50 percent of all funds generated through civil forfeiture—one of the weaker financial incentives nationally but an incentive to seize nonetheless.

Colorado requires limited reporting on forfeitures, but the requirements are not consistently followed, nor are reports made readily available for public or legislative review. District attorneys must file annual forfeiture reports with the Department of Local Affairs and, unusually, must indicate whether the person from whom the property was seized was charged with or convicted of a crime. Unfortunately, reviewing these reports requires filing a Colorado Open Records Act request. When the Institute for Justice did so, it found that many reports were missing. Further, report data are not reviewed and aggregated, making it impossible to get an at-a-glance sense of the scope of forfeiture in Colorado. Data from agencies that did report, compiled by IJ, indicate forfeitures totaling almost $13 million between 2000 and 2013.

NB: This restriction does not apply to funds received through federal equitable sharing.
Colo. Rev. Stat. § 16-13-601.

Reporting requirements

District attorneys are required to file annual forfeiture reports with the Department of Local Affairs.

Colo. Rev. Stat. § 16-13-701.

State Forfeiture Data

Year

Reported Forfeiture Proceeds

2000

$623,651

2001

$2,210,837

2002

$1,454,868

2003

$1,193,626

2004

$249,180

2005

$609,355

2006

$1,106,608

2007

$783,888

2008

$761,082

2009

$1,553,586

2010

$351,442

2011

$739,151

2012

$533,111

2013

$628,238

Total

$12,798,623

Average per year

$914,187

Source: Reports of forfeitures from law enforcement agencies and district attorneys made to the Colorado Department of Local Affairs presented in calendar-year format. Not all agencies reported every year, but the Institute for Justice was unable to determine how many agency reports were missing or whether agencies failed to report in a given year because they had no forfeiture activity. IJ found several instances of forfeited property (primarily vehicles) for which a value was not reported. It is possible that some of these numbers overlap with federal equitable sharing or include seizures rather than forfeitures due to reporting errors on the part of the local agencies.

Colorado ranks 35th for federal forfeiture, with over $47 million in Department of Justice equitable sharing proceeds from 2000 to 2013.

Federal Equitable Sharing

Colorado law enforcement’s use of the Department of Justice’s equitable sharing program, with proceeds totaling $47.7 million over the 2000 to 2013 calendar years, earns the state an equitable sharing ranking of 35th place. Seventy-six percent of assets seized and 82 percent of proceeds received through the DOJ’s equitable sharing program came from joint task forces and investigations. This equitable sharing procedure was largely unaffected by DOJ policy changes adopted in 2015. Treasury Department forfeiture proceeds totaled $4.5 million across the 2000 to 2013 fiscal years, averaging almost $325,000 a year.